


And Cry Behind the Door

by Nympha_Alba



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-03
Updated: 2012-10-03
Packaged: 2017-11-15 14:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nympha_Alba/pseuds/Nympha_Alba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a buzz of energy around Sherlock Holmes, like electricity that makes the hairs stand up on Molly's arms and at the back of her neck, shivery, like breath over her skin. It pulls her towards him and makes her want to stay close. And she is scared of him, a bit, because off-handed cruelty is another area where he is brilliant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Cry Behind the Door

**Author's Note:**

> I felt so sorry for Molly in the Christmas party scene from _A Scandal in Belgravia_ so I had to write fic about it.  
>  The story title is taken from the Velvet Underground song _All Tomorrow's Parties_ , that Molly also hums to herself.

Molly barely notices Mike Stamford coming into the room, barely looks up when he does - not until he says, "Molly, this is Sherlock Holmes", and her life takes on a new shape. (Not that she knows it yet.) She extends her hand as she curiously studies the tall man with winter-blue eyes and cheekbones sharper than the edges of a microscope slide, but he doesn't take it. Instead he stares at something that isn't her, at something beyond, and says, "Oh". Then he turns 180 degrees and runs out of the room with his dark coat flapping.

Molly draws a breath, but before any words find their way from her brain to her tongue, Mike shrugs and gives her a crooked smile. "Before you ask," he says, "yes, he's always like that. When he rushes off it means he thought of something that needs _immediate action_ \- at least that’s what he says. He does it all the time. Don’t take it personally. He probably didn’t even see you."

And won't that be the soundtrack of Molly’s life – not that she knows that either. Yet.

*

There is a buzz of energy around Sherlock Holmes, like electricity that makes the hairs stand up on Molly's arms and at the back of her neck, shivery, like breath over her skin. It pulls her towards him and makes her want to stay close, orbit him and let herself be energised. She is scared of him, a bit – scared of his general weirdness at first, but later of his scathing comments and those piercing eyes that really do see everything, particularly the things she is trying to hide, like her accidentally mismatched earrings or the ladder in her tights from where they caught on a thorn on her way to the tube that morning.

When Sherlock brings a whip to the morgue, Molly stands rooted to the spot and watches him, horrified and fascinated. At every crack of the leather she winces and bites her lip, shuddering with something akin to arousal. She has no idea what possesses her to run to her locker and put on lipstick before she talks to him again - she really should have known better. Off-handed cruelty is yet another area where he is brilliant.

She doesn't know what possesses her in general when it comes to Sherlock Holmes. After all, she is a professional woman, competent and tough – she needs to be, in her line of work. Men are often put off when they find out how she spends her days. They move away a fraction and pretend they don’t, and keep glancing at her as if she'll suddenly lunge at them with a scalpel like something out of a horror film. If she's in a sarcastic mood or just wants to be left alone, she'll begin to describe in detail the shapes of wounds caused by different types of instruments, anything from hammers to icepicks. She'll be alone in less than a minute.

Sherlock isn’t scared of her. From what Molly gathers, he spends _his_ days doing far weirder things than cutting up dead people. 

Sometimes she wonders if he sees her at all, or if she is still as transparent and barely existent as the first time they met.

The friend that Sherlock brings to St Barts from time to time, the one who is Mike's friend too, John Watson, has kind eyes and a hardness to his jaw that Molly quite likes. _Him_ , Sherlock sees. Sherlock is examining a corpse, all focus and intensity, but his body language tells Molly how aware he is of John's presence. With her, he is never like that in the least - as far as Sherlock is concerned she could be a piece of furniture, far less interesting than the microscope. She could be a chair. Yes, for Sherlock, she is Molly-the-chair. 

She can't help wondering about the nature of their relationship, Sherlock and John's, even if Mike does say that John has a girlfriend. They are so in sync, so aware of each other's presence, so attentive to anything the other says and does. The only time Molly ever heard Sherlock laugh, it was with John. They stopped when she came into the room.

*

It's snowing beautifully outside as Molly runs around her flat getting ready, shower-damp and jittery with anticipation. Never in a million years would she have expected Sherlock to do anything as sociable and normal as inviting people round for Christmas drinks, at _his_ place, even; she'd never associate Sherlock with mulled wine and mince pies and Christmas cheer. But here she is now, getting ready for the party, so nervous and excited that her hands tremble. She has a present for him. It's wrapped up very prettily in crisp red wrapping paper with carefully folded corners and a Christmassy bow. It sits in a bag on top of the other presents that she's bringing over to Suz's afterwards. And a card – oh god, the card!

Molly puts her hair up in a damp twist to stop it falling into her face and stands in the kitchen in her silk slip, turning the tiny card over in her fingers. She needs some liquid courage for this, she decides, and pours a nearly full glass of the Chardonnay she opened yesterday. Shuddering at the crisp heat of alcohol, she writes quickly before courage deserts her:

_Dearest Sherlock, Love Molly xxx_

There, that's that. Now – what dress? _What costume shall a poor girl wear to all tomorrow's parties?_ she hums on the way back to the bedroom. _A hand-me-down dress from god knows where..._

She tries on the Christmas red one, with bright red lipstick, and makes a face at the mirror.

"You look like an eighties pop star," she tells herself, "and not in a good way."

Finally she settles on the black one with all the fake crystals at the neckline and the sparkly spaghetti straps. It's far too dressed up for an afternoon thing like this, but she's going on to Suz's after which is justification enough, and for once, just for _once_ , she'd like to see Sherlock's jaw drop. She does have a good body, and dress makes her feel good and a bit extravagant as she picks out too-sparkly earrings. Her eyes are sparkling, too, with the wine and the thought of seeing Sherlock outside of work, and the tiny, tiny hope of something happening. The overall effect is pleasing, she thinks and giggles a bit. _Pleasing._ She sounds like something from Lord Peter Wimsey. Perhaps she's Harriet Vane. If only she had Harriet's poise.

Suz knows about Sherlock. Molly has told her in a giggly, studiedly not-serious way that she'd love to know what Sherlock is like in bed, those _hands_ of his, and that mouth, but she hasn't let on how terribly, terribly in love with him she is. Anyway, if something happens (oh god, if something _happens_ ), she can always text Suz and say she's not coming and Suz will understand. Or hopefully she _is_ coming, but not to Suz's. 

After another generous glass of wine, Molly toys with the idea of going commando, but after the first frisson of excitement and a short fantasy about Sherlock's hand slipping between her thighs, she clears her throat and sighs. Sherlock notices everything; he'll probably know by osmosis or something that she has no knickers on, and say something horrible.

Molly applies a final layer of lipstick, and then the taxi is there.

*

The flat that Sherlock shares with John is surprisingly cosy. There's a fire going, and windows and mirrors are draped with Christmas lights. John is there with a girl, and Inspector Lestrade and the boys’ landlady, but for Molly they're mere shadows and only Sherlock is in colour. She is horribly overdressed, as she knew she would be, and begins to giggle nervously. John has a jumper on that makes him look like a cross between a garden gnome and Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and his girl is wearing something demure and boring, but Molly is only half embarrassed at Johns "Holy Mary!" when he takes her coat; the other half of her is triumphant. She is aware of fidgeting but can't stop herself – it's equal parts self-consciousness and party mood. She fiddles with the double set of shoulder straps and thinks it was a bad idea to wear the slip underneath the dress. But she does like her sparkly jewellery - it looks festive, she decides - and she is determined not to think about her too-red lips or too-high heels. Thank goodness the room is warm, at least.

The Inspector shakes her hand and asks if he can get her a drink, and she flirtatiously touches her earrings, aware that she is doing it for Sherlock's benefit even if the Inspector is admittedly both nice and nice-looking.

Sherlock, never one for politeness, is at his laptop, and Molly sees him out of the corner of her eye when she asks Mrs Hudson about her hip and promptly puts her foot in her mouth.

“Don’t make jokes, Molly,” Sherlock mutters from the laptop, and _of course_ he had to overhear that; he always hears things he shouldn't.

He sees things he shouldn’t, too. 

When he spots the Christmas present, _his_ Christmas present, where it sits bright and red at the top of the bag, he naturally can't resist. He pounces on it and begins to spout deductions about its recipient. _Show-off_ , Molly thinks in the split second before she realises they're heading for disaster.

"Perfectly wrapped with a bow - someone special then." Sherlock lifts his eyebrows suggestively.

For someone as frighteningly bright as he is, he can sometimes be so _stupid_. Everyone, _everyone_ but Sherlock sees where this is going. John and the Inspector do their best - they tell Sherlock to shut up, to take the day off, but he is like a terrier with a bone. Molly's face is burning and she nearly sloshes the mulled wine out of her glass. 

"...same shade as her lipstick... deliberately trying to encourage... she has _lurve_ on her mind."

She draws a desperate breath to stop him but no words come out, and she feels her eyes widening at whatever awful thing he is going to say next.

"...long-term hopes... that she's seeing him tonight is evident from what her make-up and what she’s wearing."

The air is thick in the room. There's a disbelieving silence as Sherlock continues to speed headlong towards disaster.

"...obviously trying to compensate for the size of her mouth and breasts..."

...and the stream of words slows to a halt as he reads the card.

While something hot flowers inside Molly at Sherlock mentioning her breasts - that word in his mouth, that thought in his head - she winces at the cruelty of his words as they catch up with her. He might as well have slapped her. She would have preferred to be slapped. 

Everyone is staring at Sherlock, flabbergasted.

He actually has the grace to look a bit horrified, but it's too late, far too late, and Molly can't stop herself.

"You always say such horrible things," she says, not even trying to hide her hurt and humiliation, "every time. Always, always." Her voice does a pathetic, trembly little thing at the last word.

She can see how desperately sorry Mrs Hudson feels for her and she considers bolting, but apparently her mortification hasn't yet reached its peak, because then Sherlock apologises. He _apologises_ , for god’s sake - he never ever does. But now he leans down and murmurs Merry Christmas and even kisses Molly's cheek, and somehow that's worse than anything he could have done. Poor Molly, so pathetic she gets a pity kiss from _Sherlock_ who barely has human feelings.

She sort of wants to die, but at least it can't get any worse now, she thinks - but just then her humiliation is taken to a whole new level by a _moan_ , an honest-to-god, unmistakably female _moan_.

"It wasn't me," Molly blurts, and _now_ nothing can get worse. This is as bad as it can ever be, and she believes that for a whole second before Sherlock tells them it's a text and she realises it must be from a woman. The small parcel Sherlock grabs from the mantelpiece can also only be from a woman, and even the parcel is humiliating in its sophistication, reducing Molly's cheery little present to something charmingly but ineptly made by a child.

Sherlock disappears and Molly gulps down half of her mulled wine in one go, coughing and not caring about politeness. When the Inspector offers her a neutral conversation topic along with a plate of mince pies she has to restrain herself not to bat the plate out of his hand and send it clanging to the floor. It would feel so good to succumb to hysterical sobs and trample mincemeat into the carpet. But Molly doesn’t do that sort of thing, and anyway it's probably Mrs Hudson who does the cleaning.

It's time to leave, she decides, high time, to be out of the way when Sherlock emerges after his phone call. She cringes at the thought of ever having to see him again.

When she pulls on her coat with shaking fingers, biting the lipstick from her mouth and trying not to cry, Mrs Hudson appears at her side.

"Oh, my dear, Sherlock can be so insensitive,” she says, and bless her for not pretending nothing happened. “Can I call you a cab?"

Molly’s fingers slip on the buttons as she covers up her glittery dress that she will never wear again. God no, not a cab. She can't face the silence of a cab. She just shakes her head and escapes down the stairs, teetering in her high heels.

The door falls shut behind her, cutting off the voices and the Christmas music, and she sucks in a greedy lungful of cold air like someone who's been underwater. It feels wonderful to slip and slide along the pavement exchanging smiles and exclamations with other people who are nearly falling over. She embraces the ugly escalators and the stale air at the platform with deep affection as she waits for the train; loves the fluorescent lights that make people look like corpses – she should feel right at home, then. Thank god Mrs Hudson didn't get her a cab; she needs to be surrounded by people so she can’t cry.

By the time she rings Suz’s doorbell her mouth has stopped twisting. 

"I need to get drunk," she announces.

Suz pulls her inside, kisses her cheek and takes her coat. "Everyone does at Christmas, darling. Worst time of the year."

Bless Suz and her potent mulled wine. Molly relaxes, holds out her mug to be refilled and hopes Suz won’t see the small red parcel that was slipped into her dustbin.


End file.
